I’ve always been a very law-abiding citizen, a positive goody-goody in my youth, and I just don’t think that’s FAIR!

I’m not having a flare, I’m not in a great deal of pain, none of my small joints (you know, the one’s that RA affects when it obeys the rules) are causing me an problem at all. Hurrah. Believe me, I’m not complaining about that. Even my acromoclavicular joint, that little one in the shoulder/neck area that’s given me a lot of gyp in the past, is fine.

No, this time the problem is the wacking great big joint – the ‘ball and socket’ where the upper arm bone (humerous) fits into the shoulder – the glenohumeral joint apparently. Good job I have a love of words, because there’s very little else to love about my left glenohumeral joint right now!

As I said, I’m not in a great deal of pain – in fact no pain most of the time. However, something’s going on in that joint which is causing a nerve to get trapped whenever I try to a) lift the arm past horizontal height sideways b) lift the arm past what I can only think of, given that I’m reading a book about Germany in World War II at the moment, as Nazi salute height c) lift something heavy or d) sleep on that side. And when it gets trapped, IT HURTS! Fortunately it doesn’t hurt for very long, unlike that typical toothachy grinding pain of RA, but it does hurt… a lot!

I’ve had it for months – I couldn’t be bothered to go and see the doc. After all, it only hurt if I did things that I didn’t really have to do, and I thought it would just get better.

It got worse.

I also thought that it wasn’t RA. It might not be … but I saw the doc today and she thinks it probably is.

On the bright side, she’s referred me to physio. On the not so bright side it could take weeks, because I’m at work. If I was off work because of it, I could get an urgent appointment so I could get back to work.

If I was off work because of it, I would have no money coming in… I’ll wait.

Also on the not so bright side, she’s dubious about the physios being able to do anything about it. If they can’t, I’ll probably have to have an investigatory ultrasound (no worries) and an injection (nerve or joint related I’m not quite sure – decided I’d rather not ask …) … big worries! However, as I’m immuno-suppressed she’s not keen to go down the injection path because of risk of infection. I assured her that as I’m a wimp I’m also not keen to down the injection path, because of risk of pain!

Just have to sit back and wait for the physiotherapy appointment now, and hope it doesn’t take so long that I AM off work with the problem by the time I get the appointment!

Flippers crossed.

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A bit about me

My name is not Pollyanna and I'm not a penguin. If you'd not worked out the last bit you should probably stop reading this and seek out a psychologist.

This is a blog about me and rheumatoid arthritis - sounds like fun, huh? Well I'm hoping it'll be a bit more fun than it sounds - hence the Pollyanna part. I'm going to try to stay positive about it and play 'Pollyanna's glad game' - finding reasons to be cheerful basically.

If you really want to know more see the 'About me' page.

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